Adapting to Change and Accepting Reality
“A Rose for Emily” and “Miss Brill”In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill” the reader is given a glimpse into the lives of two elderly women living in two entirely different worlds but sharing many similar characteristics. First, Miss Brill and Miss Emily attempt to adapt to change in a changing environment. Second, they have their own versions of facing reality. The authors use change and facing reality to illustrate how some characters can adapt to change and accept reality and how some characters cannot. Through the authors’ use of imagery, it becomes very clear to the reader that Miss Brill is more successful than Miss Emily at adapting to change and accepting reality.

Miss Brill is more successful with adapting to change and facing reality. Instead of hiding away in the “cupboard,” she emerges to participate in life. She adapts to the world that is changing as she gets older, rather than lose her sanity or commit crimes. Although she thinks that she is an actress in a play, she has her own versions of reality. However, it doesn’t take her long to accept reality. In contrast, Miss Emily isn’t successful with adapting to change or accepting reality. She rarely goes outside her house to participate in what life has to offer. She kills her potential suitor, Homer Barron, and loses her sanity to control her environment. Throughout the story, Emily refuses to adapt to any of the changes going on in her town. She refuses to hang numbers on her mailboxes or pay taxes. Critic Andrew Dutton states, “Faulkner sets the state for this story perfectly at the beginning when he describes Emily's house. He writes about old symbols of the south and then transposes them against an image of modernization. This causes Emily's house to seem awkward and out of place against the backdrop of the changing town.” (Dutton 1) The house is the most important image of the story because it seems like...

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MissBrill & MissEmilyEmily Grierson from “A Rose for Emily” and MissBrill from the
story “MissBrill” are two women that are trying to relive their past
in the present time. In these stories, you are taken into the lives
of two elderly women living very different lives, yet sharing many
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obvious differences.
From the very beginning of both stories, we can tell that the
women are lonely. MissBrill would go to the park every “Sunday”
(Mansfield 232) and watch the people around her. She was disappointed
that the people on the bench “did not speak” (Mansfield 232) to her.
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her “fur”(Mansfield 231) by talking to it and acting like it has
feelings. She even feels it “move in her bosom.” (Mansfield 232).
She describes the people around her at the park as “odd, silent,
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Perhaps, the most enticing word for Emily isn't “sick”. Demented and perpetually disturbed appears more appealing to a novice that does not understand the true depth of Emily's nature. The narrator that speaks of this story has a personality that of the old with an age of the young. Whether it may be a man or woman, the rose symbolizes praise to Emily as a maverick in early women's movement. The type of person Emily is, is wholly due to the men that have left a drastic yet resonating impact on her life; them being her father and Homer Barron. With their coexistence in her life, she became the woman that she is at the end from their impact and the town’s comments.
Borne into a family of great wealth with a well pronounced rich lineage; a duty of any woman of her age was supposed to follow, was expected to be followed and with exact precision. However, with Emily being highly concealed by her father, she had to live with many restrictions of life, resulting in a pronounced backlash and profuse alteration of her personality. Giving the reader a limited impression that as a character, she is shown with excessive pride, leaving an enduring imagination to readers, as to what she was as an adolescent; but imagination does permit us to consider her as any young child; easily manipulative. Yet as a person Emily reacts to her situation in her...

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Profile of MissEmily Grierson in, “A Rose for Emily”.
Lunatic: Psychological term for lunatic is defined as a person who has been declared insane. The person is afflicted or has shown characteristics of mental derangement or eccentric behaviors. This person shows or is marked by a lack of good sense or judgment. Mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.
In the short story “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the character MissEmily displayed misanthropic, yet feeble behaviors that made her appear to be following in her aunts footsteps; who showed signs of mental derangement. Having been shunned from the outside world, MissEmily showed no signs of social interaction with the town’s people. MissEmily was kept in the home closely monitored by her father, and was not allowed a social life. Her aunts mental status was rapidly diminishing, losing sight of where she was, and what was going on around her.
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